The Doctor and Ace land in England during World War II, at a secret
seaside base which houses the Ultima Machine, a powerful codebreaking
device. But disturbances plague the installation: Russians are trying to
steal the Ultima, mysterious Viking runes are found in a church crypt, and
vampiric Haemovores are rising from the ocean. The Doctor discovers his
ancient foe, Fenric, has manipulated events in order to gain his freedom.
And central to Fenric's schemes is none other than Ace.

Production

By the end of Season Twenty-Five, John Nathan-Turner had been the producer
of Doctor Who for eight seasons and was keen to move on to other
projects. He had already obtained assurances from his superiors that he
would be able to leave the programme after both Season Twenty-Three and
Season Twenty-Four, only to have this promise retracted at a late stage.
Nathan-Turner then decided to remain with Doctor Who for its
silver anniversary season, because he was keen to oversee such a
milestone. However, he was determined that this would be his swansong on
the show, and indeed a number of alumni of the Doctor Who crew
appeared in Silver Nemesis as a way to
celebrate his lengthy tenure.

Production on Season Twenty-Five wrapped up in mid-August 1988, around
which time Nathan-Turner expected his bosses to name his replacement.
However, the BBC decided at a late stage to postpone one of
Nathan-Turner's proposals (developed with his Doctor Who script
editor, Andrew Cartmel) and then, in September, he was asked by Head of
Series and Serials Peter Cregreen to stay on Doctor Who. Since
his only alternative would be to quit the BBC altogether, a disspirited
Nathan-Turner reluctantly agreed. On September 8th, the BBC officially
confirmed that Doctor Who would continue to a twenty-sixth
season.

A North West setting was appealing because it was the area
in which Dracula was said to come ashore in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel

One of the writers Nathan-Turner had been working with in his attempts to
move beyond Doctor Who was Ian Briggs, who had written Dragonfire for Season Twenty-Four. In May
1988, Briggs also began discussions with Cartmel regarding a new
Doctor Who storyline. Having already written a lighthearted romp,
Briggs was now keen to try his hand at something more atmospheric,
preferably with a period setting. His original suggestion of the 1970s
was dismissed by Cartmel as being too recent. They agreed instead on the
Blitz, but rather than following the obvious tack of situating the
action in London, it was decided that Briggs' serial would take place
along the English coast. In particular, a North West setting was
appealing because it was the area in which Dracula was said to come
ashore in the eponymous 1897 novel by Bram Stoker.

Briggs had an interest in the events surrounding the dawn of the
computer age, and was eager to make use of this knowledge in light of
the time period in which his story would be set. Most notably, Professor
Judson and the Ultima machine were conceived as a parallel for Alan
Turing and his bombe device. During World War II, Turing had made
enormous strides in the field while designing a computer which could
decrypt the enciphered communications generated by the Nazis' Enigma
machine. After the war, however, Turing faced discrimination because of
his homosexuality, and committed suicide soon after being subjected to
hormone therapy as part of a criminal sentence. Judson's paraplegia
would serve as a metaphor for Turing's persecution; it would also be
very gently suggested that Judson and Commander Millington had been
involved in a homosexual relationship.

The other major element of Briggs' storyline was Norse mythology and the
journeys of the Vikings, inspired by a vacation to Sweden during the
summer. In particular, he drew upon the legend of the vast wolf-monster
Fenrir or Fenrisúlfr, who was foretold to cause the death of the
chief god Odin and so was mystically bound to a great stone until the
Ragnarok -- the “twilight of the gods”. Briggs contemplated
titles such as “Powerplay” and “Black Rain”, but
by the time the scripts were commissioned on November 9th, his storyline
was called “Wolf-Time”.

Having introduced Ace in Dragonfire, Briggs
was excited to contribute to a throughline Cartmel had envisioned for
Season Twenty-Six, in which Ace would be forced to face up to her
greatest fears. Nathan-Turner, however, was wary of the emphasis his
script editor wanted to put on the companion, and was mindful of the
continuity issues which had arisen due to the last-minute rescheduling
of The Greatest Show In The Galaxy.
Consequently, he argued for standalone serials, as opposed to the gentle
linkages Cartmel had in mind. The producer also wanted to pull back on
the notion of the Doctor possessing hitherto unrevealed powers, which
had been hinted at during Season Twenty-Five.

The Ancient Haemovore's origin on a dying Earth was
inspired by the 1976 David Bowie film The Man Who
Fell To Earth

Another point on which Nathan-Turner was firm was that the monsters in
“Wolf-Time” should not be referred to as
“vampires”, which had already featured in Season Eighteen's State Of Decay. Instead, Briggs developed the
idea of the Haemovores -- literally, “blood eaters”. The
origin of Ingiger, the Ancient Haemovore, on a dying future Earth was
inspired by the alien played by David Bowie in the 1976 film The Man
Who Fell To Earth, who comes from a world ravaged by drought. The
Soviet names were drawn from the works of Russian playwright Anton
Chekhov: Sorin is the owner of the estate which serves as the setting of
1896's The Seagull, Prozorov is the name of the family central to
1901's The Three Sisters (in which Vershinin is a soldier), and
1904's The Cherry Orchard deals with the heirs of the Gayev family.
Miss Hardaker, meanwhile, was inspired by the schoolteacher Miss Tillings
in the 1965 Dennis Potter play Stand Up, Nigel Barton. (Ironically,
both characters would be portrayed by the same actress: Janet Henfrey.)
Briefly, the weapon hidden in the Ultima machine was an atomic bomb.
Another discarded idea was a coda in which an older Ace is putting a baby
to bed when she catches a glimpse of the Doctor watching over her.

Around the start of 1989, Briggs' adventure was renamed “The Wolves
Of Fenric”. At this point, it was planned to be the second story
made for Season Twenty-Six and designated Serial 7N. As such, it would
enter production in May under director Michael Kerrigan following the
completion of Battlefield, in which
Nicholas Courtney would be reprising his role as Brigadier
Lethbridge-Stewart. However, in January it was discovered that Courtney
would not be available for that adventure's April recording dates.
Consequently, it was decided to interchange “The Wolves Of
Fenric” and Battlefield in the
production schedule. This meant that “The Wolves Of Fenric”
was now classified as Serial 7M, and would be directed by Nicholas
Mallett, who had last worked on Paradise
Towers for Season Twenty-Four.

The abrupt change also meant that Briggs was faced with four fewer weeks
to complete his scripts, forcing him to write the final two episodes
over the span of just three weekends. Around the same time, Cartmel
requested the removal of any references to Ragnarok, in order to avoid
confusion with the Gods of Ragnarok who had appeared in the Season
Twenty-Five finale, The Greatest Show In The
Galaxy. Also deleted was a line of dialogue in part one which
would have suggested that Ace was not a virgin. Indeed, the character
outline which Briggs had drawn up in 1987 acknowledged that she had had
sex with the space rogue Sabalom Glitz.

During pre-production, Nicholas Mallett became convinced
that the serial should be made entirely on location

In the late Eighties, four-part Doctor Who stories were made as a
combination of location and studio recording. In the case of “The
Wolves Of Fenric”, it was planned that scenes outside the naval
base, in the graveyard and on the shoreline would be completed on location
between April 1st and 11th, to be followed by three days in the studio
from April 25th. During pre-production, however, Mallett became
convinced that “The Wolves Of Fenric” would be best served
if it were made entirely on location, with the costs recovered by hiring
the guest cast for a shorter period of time. Although he also wanted to
make greater use of location filming in Doctor Who, Nathan-Turner
was uneasy with the scope of his Mallett's plans, and only grudgingly
agreed.

Coming into Season Twenty-Six, Sylvester McCoy had anticipated that this
would be his final year on Doctor Who. However, he had greatly
enjoyed the moodier direction that his character had taken during Season
Twenty-Five, and also now enjoyed a strong bond with his costar, Sophie
Aldred. Nathan-Turner was eager for McCoy to stay on for an extra year,
and in early 1989 he finally succeeded in persuading the actor to agree.
As such, when McCoy was contracted for Season Twenty-Six on March 13th,
an option was added to cover Doctor Who's twenty-seventh season
in 1990. He was also pleased by the decision to modify his costume, with
designer Ken Trew introducing a darker jacket, hatband, tie and
handkerchief to reflect the Seventh Doctor's evolving personality.

During rehearsals, Tomek Bork (Captain Sorin) suggested to Mallett that,
for the story's opening moments, the Soviet troops should speak in
Russian, in which the Polish-born actor was fluent. The director agreed,
on the condition that Bork translated the dialogue himself and assisted
the other actors. It was at this stage that Nathan-Turner asked Briggs
to reconsider Serial 7M's title yet again. The producer was concerned
that the meaning of the term “wolves” in the context of the
plot came too late to avoid confusing viewers, and so Briggs proposed
The Curse Of Fenric instead. Nonetheless, “The Wolves Of
Fenric” would still be used on some documentation right up to the
story's broadcast.

The major location for Serial 7M was the Crowborough Training Camp at
Crowborough, East Sussex, which represented the Naval base. The recording,
which spanned April 3rd to 8th and then concluded on the 11th, was
hampered at times by unseasonably cold and snowy weather, and on other
occasions by heavy rains. As a result, the ground became extremely
muddy, and the prop tunnel entrance constructed by the BBC design team
started to sink; Briggs also had to rewrite some of his dialogue to
account for the conditions.

Sylvester McCoy's sons, Sam and Joe Kent-Smith, were
invited to play two of the Haemovores

On April 12th and 13th, Mallett's team travelled to St Lawrence's Church
in Hawkhurst, Kent, which posed as St Jude's and its graveyard. It had
been a struggle to locate a church with both a bell tower and a flat roof
which could support the cast and crew. In the end, advertisements were
placed in newspapers asking for the public's assistance, and an
historian had recommended St Lawrence's. Three more Hawkhurst locations
were also used for The Curse Of Fenric. On the 14th, the cell
area where Fenric's flask unearthed itself was in Bedgebury Lower
School. Then, on the 15th, Miss Hardaker's cottage was a private home
called Roses Farm, and the mine shaft was actually an old British Rail
tunnel on Yew Tree Farm. At this last location, Nathan-Turner invited
McCoy's sons, Sam and Joe Kent-Smith, to play two of the Haemovores
while they and their mother were visiting.

Finally, Maidens' Point was actually Lulworth Cove, near West Lulworth in
Dorset. Mallett filmed there from April 18th to 20th, with Nathan-Turner
directing the underwater photography with a second unit on the last day.
Ironically, the recording of the Haemovores' rise from the water on the
19th was beset by the same problem which had afflicted a similar scene
in 1972's The Sea Devils, as the costumes
trapped air and became difficult to submerge. Ultimately, the Haemovore
actors were given rocks to which they could cling, in order to keep
themselves underwater.

In post-production, Mallett was distressed to learn that one of the
videotapes from the April 7th recording at Crowborough had been reused the
following day, with all of the footage wiped as a result. In particular,
this meant that he had lost various close-up and insert shots from the
climactic confrontation between Fenric and the Ancient Haemovore. With no
option to restage the affected material, Mallett had to compose the scene
using mostly wider-angled shots. As a result, some of the Ancient
Haemovore's dialogue was dropped, as was a shot which suggested that
only Ingiger's remains were left behind in the gas chamber, implying
that Fenric had contrived a way to escape.

The episodes were so overlong that consideration was given
to reediting The Curse Of Fenric as a
five-part story

After the first edits were compiled, The Curse Of Fenric was found
to exceed its allotted twenty-five-minute time slot in spectacular
fashion, with episode four especially overlong. Indeed, consideration
was given to reediting Serial 7M as a five-part story, but the total
overrun of about twelve minutes was not sufficient to warrant another
installment, and Briggs was concerned about the effect this would have
on the adventure's pace. Amongst the most drastic trims Mallett was
forced to make were a scene of soldiers staking Haemovores on the roof
of St Jude's from episode three, and more of the exchange between the
Doctor and the Ancient Haemovore from episode four.

The Curse Of Fenric was originally planned to be the second story
of Season Twenty-Six after Battlefield.
However, given the adventure's atmospheric content, Nathan-Turner
decided that it should air around Hallowe'en; given the season's start
on September 6th, this necessitated that it be moved back one slot, to
follow Ghost Light. The new broadcast order
had been decided by June. Unfortunately, this did mean that the line of
dialogue concerning the spooky old house which Ace burned down -- which
was intended to inspire the Doctor's decision to bring Ace to
investigate the mansion known as Gabriel Chase in Ghost Light -- was now rendered somewhat
incongruous.

The new broadcast order meant that dialogue meant to
foreshadow Ghost Light was rendered somewhat
incongruous

The Curse Of Fenric was the final Doctor Who work for both
Nicholas Mallett and Ian Briggs. Mallett went on to direct episodes of
Children's Ward, The Bill and Take The High Road; he
passed away on January 30th, 1997. Briggs' later writing credits included
Casualty and The Bill, before his career moved into theatre
management, arts marketing and independent film production. Briggs also
authored two acclaimed novelisations of his Doctor Who stories, and
was asked to write the fourth novel for Virgin Publishing's Doctor Who:
The New Adventures range, bringing the opening Timewyrm cycle
to its conclusion. When this did not come to pass, the slot was instead
taken by Timewyrm: Revelation, by future Doctor Who
screenwriter Paul Cornell. Briggs did later contribute a story to the
anthology Doctor Who: Short Trips: Defining Patterns, published
by Big Finish Productions in 2008.

After the weak viewing figures for Seasons Twenty-Three and Twenty-Four,
the Doctor Who production team had been encouraged when Season
Twenty-Five demonstrated some positive ratings momentum, despite the
fact that the programme was still scheduled opposite the enormously
popular soap opera Coronation Street. Sadly, Season Twenty-Six
premiered to historically small audiences, and the needle climbed only
marginally over the following weeks. Nathan-Turner made the unusual
decision to “relaunch” the season at its halfway mark,
holding a press screening for the first episodes of The Curse Of
Fenric and the season finale, Survival,
on October 19th. However, the impact was minimal, and the four episodes
of The Curse Of Fenric would become the only first-run Doctor
Who broadcasts to slide so far down the ratings tables that their
chart placements are unknown.